Teo Nicolais is a real estate entrepreneur who loves to teach.
Nicolais graduated from Harvard College with a bachelor’s in Economics and from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with a Master of Science in Real Estate Development. He studied real estate private equity at Harvard Business School and advanced real estate finance, development, and private equity at Harvard Graduate School of Design. His studies included finance and system dynamics at the MIT Sloan School of Management and real estate finance and investment, real estate development, urban economics, real estate law, and urban planning at MIT’s Center for Real Estate.
Nicolais has taught 95 courses at the Harvard Division of Continuing Education with a cumulative enrollment of nearly 14,000 students. Of the four courses required for Harvard Extension School’s Real Estate Investment Certificate, three are taught by Nicolais. To date, over 5,600 Harvard students have taken his real estate courses.
Students recently honored Nicolais with an overall rating of 5.00 out of 5.00 in their course evaluations and Harvard Extension School awarded him with the Joanna Fussa Distinguished Teaching Award and the Dean Michael Shinagel Award. Nicolais has received the “Harvard Extension Student Association’s Student Choice Award” twice.
Nicolais lives and breathes real estate as President of his real estate investment company, Nicolais, LLC, which invests in multifamily rental properties in the Denver metro area. He has been hired by the Federal Trade Commission as an expert witness in real estate matters and as a real estate subject matter expert by Harvard Business School Online.
Nicolais has twice served as Vice President of the Apartment Association of Metro Denver (AAMD) which represents over 261,000 apartment units and was on the Board of Directors of the Colorado Apartment Association which represents over 317,000 apartment units. Nicolais has served as Chair of the AAMD’s Independent Rental Owner’s Council, a Director of the US Fund for UNICEF, and is member of the Urban Land Institute. He was named the Apartment Association of Metro Denver’s Person of the Year.
Prior to starting his own investment company, Nicolais served as the Director of Finance and Acquisitions for a $500 million real estate investment company in Illinois active in the development and management of apartments, condominiums, single-family homes, office, and retail properties.
Nicolais personally identified and negotiated the purchase of new investments and arranged financing using equity, taxable and tax-exempt bonds, institutional debt, and conventional bank loans. Nicolais also managed the due diligence process for new acquisitions and worked directly with the firm’s principals on capital allocation strategies.